新生代

Link: http://olympus.het.brown.edu/cgi-bin/dwww?type=file&location=/usr/share/doc/gnome-cups-manager/README 

实践证明，在搜索关键字"gnome-cups-manager readme"时，google做的远比cuil好。

Once upon a time there was a printer who lived in the woods.  He was a
lonely printer, because nobody knew how to configure him.  He hoped
and hoped for someone to play with.

One day, the wind passed by the printer’s cottage.  "Whoosh," said the
wind.  The printer became excited.  Maybe the wind would be his
friend! 

"Will you be my friend?" the printer asked.

"Whoosh," said the wind.

"What does that mean?" asked the printer.

"Whoosh," said the wind, and with that it was gone.

The printer was confused.  He spent the rest of the day thinking and
jamming paper (for that is what little printers do when they are
confused).

The next day a storm came.  The rain came pouring down, darkening the
morning sky and destroying the printer’s garden.  The little printer
was upset.  "Why are you being so mean to me?" he asked.

"Pitter Patter, Pitter Patter," said the rain.

"Will you be my friend?" the printer asked shyly.

"Pitter Patter, Pitter Patter," said the rain, and then it left and
the sun came out.

The printer was sad.  He spent the rest of the day inside, sobbing and
blinking lights cryptically (for that is what little printers do when
they are sad).

Then one day, a little girl stumbled into the printer’s clearing in
the woods.  The printer looked at this curious sight.  He didn’t know
what to think. 

The little girl looked up at him.  "Will you be my friend?" she asked.

"Yes," said the printer.

"What is your name?" asked the little girl.

"HP 4100TN", replied the printer.

"My name is gnome-cups-manager" said the little girl.

The printer was happy.  He spent the rest of the day playing games and
printing documents, for that is what little printers do when they are
happy.

确实很喜欢Scott Adams的文字。我想我理解他文字的能力远大于理解他漫画的能力——当然，这正是我英文远弱于斯的表现。说实话，对于"Dilbert"，也是断断续续地看；毕竟不是母语，而且看漫画而没有笑意使我觉得自己很stupid。正是由于贪便宜的念头，使我在搞怪类书籍前面寻找了半个小时，而终于找到了这本$10的厚700多页的书。

一般老美出书都喜欢在封四（太专业了？就是封底）上引用名人对该书的评价。然而我却在这本厚书的封四上找到了Scott自己的话：

"My hope is that you will see some writing here and assume it’s a bunch of quotes from famous people complimenting the book. Well, if you think famous people have time to read books, you’re wrong."

你怎么评价你所在的公司呢？你怎么去理解发生在那里的一切呢？是不是和我一样，永远想不明白为什么被promote的人会被promote?为什么做了很多很辛苦的工作却并不认为得到了与之相配的报酬？是不是时常觉得不明白老板在想什么？而且还经常为新的政策感到不解？如果是这样的，那你和我一样需要一种方式来解释这些现象，然后你就会觉得这个世界其实非常简单。Scott就是这样一个把事情想得很明白的人。让我们来看看他是怎么阐述这些事情的：

When I first started hearing these stories I was puzzled, but after careful analysis I have developed a sophisticated theory to explain the existence of this bizarre workplace behavior: People are idiots.

Including me. Everyone is an idiot, not just the people with low SAT scores. The only differences among us is that we’re idiots about different things at different times. No matter how smart you are, you spend much of your day being an idiot. That’s the central premise of this scholarly work.

…

Scientists believe that humans are the grand result of billions of years of evolution. I can’t explain the entire theory of evolution here, but it can be summarized this way.

First, there were some amoebas. Deviant amoebas adapted better to the environment, thus becoming monkeys. Then came Total Quality Management.

…

All the technology that surrounds us, all the management theories, the economic models that predict and guide our behavior, the science that helps us live to eighty — it’s all created by a tiny percentage of deviant smart people. The rest of us are treading water as fast as we can. The world is too complex for us. Evolution didn’t keep up. … We got knowledge and technology before we got intelligence.

Scott被认为是当今地球上最幽默的人（citation needed），他的幽默真的是让人笑过之后多有所思。其实Scott说得很对，我们生活的这个世界里充满了我们不了解的东西。我们是一切不为我们所掌握的知识和技术的宠儿。我们生活中所遇到的形形色色的人物，都是和我们没有任何分别的普通人——会犯很多低级错误的可爱的人们。如果这些还不能使你理解发生在工作中的种种费解而可笑的事，那么是时候了解一下"Dilbert Principle"了。

Stories like these prompted me to do the first annual Dilbert Survey to find out what management practices were most annoying to employees. The choices included the usual suspects: Quality, Empowerment, Re-engineering and the like. But the number-one vote-getter on this highly unscientific survey was "Idiots Promoted to Management."

…

Lately, however, the Peter Principle has given way to the Dilbert Principle. The basic concept of the Dilbert Principle is that the most ineffective workers are systematically moved to the place where they can do the least damage: management. This has not proved to be the winning strategy that you might think.  

不管认同与否，都不妨把这些话看作是个笑话——不是因为搞笑而好笑笑话。生活少不了思考，而思考的集大成者，其实不过是一个笑话罢了。

本文相关资料：

• Dilbert strips: http://dilbert.com
• Scott Adams’s blog: http://dilbert.com/blog
• A copy of "The Dilbert Principle" published on The Wall Street Journal, 5/22/95: http://www.daviddeerfield.com//Jokes/Dilbert-principle.html
• Description of Book "The Dilbert Principle": http://www.harpercollins.com/books/9780887308581/Dilbert_Principle_The/index.aspx
• 常用排版术语：http://www.cgan.net/book/books/indesign/gb/02_1.htm

有个朋友在MSN上有个一日一句。我没有那么好的耐性，也没有把握每天都能找到一些句子来分析。于是便来个几日几句吧。

最近思考了很多生与死的问题，就从这个话题开始吧。

 

Be of good cheer about death and know this as a truth — that no evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death.

— Socrates

但要真的做到cheer about death，不是说说那么简单。

 

Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It’s the transition that’s troublesome.

— Isaac Asimov

所以我是快乐并麻烦着？这句话颇有Susan Calvin的口气。

 

The act of dying is also one of the acts of life.

— Marcus Aurelius

嗯，同意。

 

Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.

— Mark Twain

这是我见到过的，关于wrinkle的最美好的描述。

 

Everyone can master a grief but he that has it.

— William Shakespeare

这真是跨时空的理解和同情，谢谢你，Shakespeare.

 

Death — the last sleep? No, it is the final awakening.

— Sir Walter Scott

是的，渐渐开始想明白一些关于生死的命题。

 

Never let yesterday use up too much of today.

— Will Rogers

同意，但难以做到。

 

This above all: to thine own self be true,

And it must follow, as the night the day,

Thou canst not then be false to any man.

— William Shakespeare

我把这些话同下面的话一并理解，但不知是否合适：

Lying to ourselves is more deeply ingrained than lying to others.

— Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevsky

 

最后，留下一句给自己：

The strongest man in the world is he who stands alone.

— Henrik Ibsen

来美国没三个月，但是有不少朋友想让我帮着从美国买东西带回去。没有问题！特别是你看过以下的注意事项以后。

1. 请确认你要购买的东西真的是在美国用美元购买更便宜，或者质量更可信赖。我知道的比较便宜的东西有：笔记本电脑，某些化妆品和保健品

2. 如果不确定是否真的便宜，强烈建议到taobao上先看一下。我不是taobao的托，至少我们得先了解一下行情。

3. 如果可以，请使用你自己的国际信用卡，我可以告诉你我的地址，帮你接收。

4. 如果你没有国际信用卡，我可以帮你垫付。千万记住，我不拒绝小费。而且，为了方便，我们结算的时候要四入五入到1美元。

5. 我没有任何别的渠道可以把东西运回中国，除了让来美国出差的朋友帮着带回去。请考虑你所购买的物品，是否可以托运回国。如果没有朋友愿意或者能够帮你带回去，我也没有办法负任何责任。此外，因为是托运，没有办法100%保证运输过程中的安全，这个风险也只能你来承担。

6. 如果你愿意承担$50以上 (比如：$50是寄一封信，$95是寄一个iPhone)的邮寄费用，我也可以考虑用UPS或者FedEx帮你寄回去。为此，我需要你提供中英文的地址。

7. 在美国的网上下定单之前，强烈建议去搜索一下打折信息。我个人的经验是，一般都不用在网上按原价购买。比如，有个朋友要我帮他在NBA Store上定球衣。我在GOOGLE上输入了三个关键字：nba store coupon。就找到了一个8.5折的coupon。如果想买笔记本，可以先去http://www.techbargains.com/ 上看一下。

8. 请不要在未和我联系的情况下，直接把东西寄到我家。

祝大家购物愉快。

I just realized that there are two things that could make people change their mind sets and the way they live. One is breaking up and the other is owning a home.

Owning a home does not necessarily mean owning a house or any real estate. I do the leasing and enjoy it. A home for me actually is a place where you determine how things get organized and make yourself happy and comfortable. I have to thank my parents who prepared tons of stuff for me so that I really don’t need to do much more shopping to get a new home. However, you cannot become a home owner unless you do buy something. Black & Decker’s home project kit is one of them. While checking out from target, the cashier told me her story about her attempt to get exactly the same tool kit for her husband. It was for Father’s day and she just wanted to buy such tool kit for her spouse. Unfortunately, she found that it was sold out everywhere but did not check the store she is working at. Finally she only got a cordless screw gun and a package of bits for the same price. I did not know that it is something great as a gift for Father’s day. Otherwise, I would like to wait more years. However, I think I need the tool kit badly to assemble things or fix things up before my home gets ready for my lifelong partner. What a such catch-22 situation it is!

The moving company helped me move every pieces of my "home’ into the apartment and left them there still in pieces, so I slept on couch for the first night. I was notified that a third party company would come to get my furniture assembled together. Unfortunately, they just forgot about it. I slept on the bed cushion for the second night. Beds and wardrobe were put together in the next day but they ran out of time so TV stand parts still spread out. Anyway, I eventually got to sleep on a bed for the third night. I’m imagining a "New Home Calendar" for myself which starts from the first day when I moved in and then I would be able to celebrate the "new year" for having a home and celebrate the third day of each year for having a bed.

One thing that made my day was my cellphone. As I did not get comcast installed, I found that it was super simple to get internet connection over the phone. I can browse any web sites as usual and I can even log in messenger or update my Vista. I even initiated a video call and it turned out to be so smooth. No one can tell that I was using 3G connection to talk with him.

That’s almost everything about my new home by now. Something confused and something impressed.

今天下班前，顺利的提交了俺有史以来的第一个check-in。于是六点准时离开office。不想在这历史性的时刻还自己动手做饭，于是又是KFC。之所以说又，是因为昨天的晚饭也是KFC，那是因为八点半再自己做真是有点自残。

最早想尝试KFC的主要原因是想试一下drive thru。在北京，听说只有两家店有drive thru。实际上是这样的，KFC供drive thru的路不太平，开进去以后有一个喇叭，里面有人问你要点什么。当然，你面前有一个很大的菜单。点完后往前开一些，就有人在窗口前帮你准备食物。有意思的是窗口上面有一个标签，上面写着“如果没有拿到收据，就免单”，可是每次那个服务员总是把吃的给我以前，就把收据送过来。真不知道要吃多少次才能遇到一次免费的：P。

前些日子我也去了麦当劳。汉堡的味道和国内差不多，薯条就差多了。总体上，我不喜欢他们这里的麦当劳。KFC的套餐里面有土豆泥，沙拉，面包和鸡肉，比麦当劳还是健康一些。两家谁也别说谁的，就是服务，和国内的KFC或麦当劳没法比，还不如工行呢，除了收钱可以刷卡——“嗖”的一下钱就被划走了以外，真是差强人意，乏善可陈。所以，总体上KFC胜出。

忽然想到，对于我这样的懒人，可能会经常想去KFC的，也许是因为：Probably, KFC stands for "Kitchen For Chinese"。

(大洋：$5.48)

真没有想到，我竟然和美国人用普通话聊天，用中文写邮件。真的是很高兴。

今天早上来的时候，KL发了一个邮件说他庆祝来到IE组一年。而且邮件里还留了些悬念。他带来了552oz的全麦面包，问大家是不是能由此猜出他的年龄。我想了一上午都不大有头绪，猜是24。给他回了个邮件，等收到回信时，竟然是23，而且还用中文写了“全麦面包”和“加油”。我于是有兴拜访一下。结果他很高兴和我说中文。我说他中文讲得很好，他先说“托您的福”，后又说自己中文还不行。真是很有意思。

等我回到自己的office时，才发现他又给我发了邮件，内容如下（当然，我的英文还是很一般了）：

From: KL
Sent: Tuesday, May 27, 2008 11:37 AM
To: Lin Tian
Subject: English

我跟你谈的时候感觉到你的英文已经超极好。

You have two brushes!

If you come across any phrase or words that you want explained, let me know.

你真有两把刷子！

再见

-Kris

（P．S．其实英文没有这个说法“you have two brushes”）